


Skull Hits Concrete

by tawg



Category: DCU, Teen Titans
Genre: Multi, Speed Force, crisis fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-20
Updated: 2009-11-20
Packaged: 2017-10-03 10:36:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tawg/pseuds/tawg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bart left the speed force, but he came back wrong. Everything's wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skull Hits Concrete

**Author's Note:**

> This was written during the '05 crisis. As a result, it doesn't match up with the current Bart-canon, and probably counts as an AU. Language warning.

It felt… It fucking sucked.

It was… when he first came back - and he still wasn't sure if he'd meant to, if he'd wanted to, or it was an accident, or he'd been spit out like a fly in the broth - and the feel of asphalt out of control under him, falling and tearing and blood and gravel rash. It had been a shock.

It had hurt.

Not the physical sting, the emotional burn, like… like maybe he'd done something wrong, something bad, and this was the punishment.

Without the speed force - for the first time in his whole fucking life, this thing that took care of him and fixed him and was what he had always been running towards, hoping to catch - with it stripped away…

Like someone had peeled off his flesh and left all the nerve endings raw and exposed, pieces of dust and grit clogging up his muscles, tearing him apart.

He'd gotten back up, tried to run - anywhere, somewhere, God - and the fucking acid taste in his mouth, his shin bones jarring as his feet… as they _thudded_.

He'd lost the smoothness, the glide.

Like he'd lost a goddamn limb.

And… and they'd been so glad to see him back, hadn't… they didn't notice that he… he was a cripple now. The sheer physical burn of loss inside him, on his skin rubbed raw from the wind. Because he was back, and Kon…

He'd missed out on so much.

He knew he shouldn't… be _out_, on the streets. Not without one of the others, without a _babysitter_. Because he wasn't… he was useless now. Which is why he went, really.

It was… people looked at him like maybe he should give it up - but then what the hell would he do with himself? Sit at home with Jay and watch paint dry? - or like, 'Hey, Robin's normal' - and what a fucking joke that was - 'and he does great, so what the hell are you bitching about?'.

But it's… being normal made him feel like such a damn _freak_. And Max had put so much damn blood and sweat and tears into trying to make him… make him see, _pretend_ that his normal was the same as everyone else's. Maybe if Max was still around, it'd be easier.

Maybe a lot of things would be different.

And he's kind of glad when some punks step out of the shadows, even if they do call him 'honey', and 'sugar'. He's too small, he needs to bulk up. He's got a sprinters build, but his legs end at the fucking hips. Cripple. Useless fucking cripple.

It's a dirty fight, because he's in a filthy mood, and there's no point in fighting fair if you're not going to win.

Red boots touch down on the sidewalk beside him, and a spare pair of hands help him tie the hoods up. You shouldn't be out late, she doesn't say. It's not safe, she doesn't add.

"Having fun?" she does ask, and he shoots her a feral grin in return. It startles her, but she pretends it doesn't.

He'd never really… before he came back - was spat out, rejected - he'd never really felt angry. He didn't get it. He kind of thought that maybe it was embarrassment gone wrong, but it wasn't. Anger was loving something so much only your fists could show it. He loved the speed - he loved not being a freak - and dirty kicks and fights he was too smart to get into… they spoke when his mouth forgot.

Cassie walks silently with him a few more blocks, to where he parked the bike. And he still can't get over that, a speedster using a _vehicle_ to got anywhere. Arsenal and Nightwing pieced it together for him, like a memorial or a boost or something. They'd painted it red, to make it go faster. Ha fucking ha.

It went faster than any car, than any plane excluding the messed up shit the air force had stockpiled. It went fast enough to make his eyes water, and his skin raw, and his nose bleed.

And it was nothing near fast enough.

He climbed on, and handed her the helmet. Cassie strapped it on, not commenting on how she didn't need it, forgetting that if he fell off his brains'd be nothing but a dull smear, sensing maybe that he wouldn't mind.

When he gunned the engine, it felt like a kick in the teeth.

It had never occurred to him that he had… that he _believed_ in anything, like a faith or something. Because believing and knowing are different, he'd thought, and he'd always just _known_. It was like the difference between standing in the snow, pretending you haven't got a jacket, and actually being exposed, stranded.

He'd been stripped bare, nakedness tasting bitter. Sometimes it felt like he'd always been that way, had just imagined this something else to take his mind off how small and pathetic and utterly messed up he was. It'd… he didn't _know_ anymore.

Pulling up in front of the tower, and he wished… he hoped. Let this be a dream. Let me wake up like I did every other day of the measly four years of my life, or don't let me wake up at all.

He wanted, with every fibre of his body, to believe.

Cassie dismounted the bike. She was thinner, harder around the edges. An image of her, back in Young Justice, with the black wig, and they'd both had those awful ridiculous goggles. She ran a hand through her hair, and he missed the old her, the old them.

"Did you…" her voice cracked, "Was I really the first girl to make you like girls?"

He grinned self-consciously. "No… but every now and… sometimes I'd look at you and wish you were."

"Kon was in love with Tim," she said.

And maybe it was late, or maybe he was just getting used to pretending, maybe it was the sudden honesty that made him laugh. "We all were. I think it's the ca-"

And then her mouth was on his, her fists that could smash down buildings buried in his hair. If she lost control, forgot, she could… he'd be…

He kissed her back, and prayed.


End file.
